Open AccessCOLLABORATING AT MICROSCOPIC AND MASSIVE SCALES: THE CHALLENGE AND VALUE OF COVID ISOLATION FOR CRITICAL INTERNET STUDIES
Author(s) -
Andrew Herman,
Annette N. Markham,
Mary Elizabeth Luka,
Rebecca Carlson,
Danielle Dilkes,
Fiona Stirling,
Riccardo Pronzato,
Devina Sarwatay
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12116
Subject(s) - isolation (microbiology) , the internet , sociology , value (mathematics) , originality , scale (ratio) , kaleidoscope , social media , public relations , covid-19 , political science , data science , engineering ethics , computer science , social science , world wide web , engineering , geography , qualitative research , cartography , machine learning , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , programming language , medicine , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Global events like a pandemic or climate change are massive in scopebut experienced at the local, lived, microscopic level. What sorts of methodologies andmindsets can help critical internet researchers, functioning as interventionists oractivists, find traction by oscillating between these levels? How can we push (further)against the boundaries of research methods to build stronger coalitions and more impactfuloutcomes for social change among groups of scholars/researchers? This panel presents fourpapers addressing these questions based on a large scale online autoethnography in 2020.This “Massive/Micro” project simultaneously used and studied the angst and novelty ofisolation during a pandemic, activating researchers, activists, and artists to explore themassive yet microscopic properties of COVID-19 as a “glocal” phenomenon. The challenge?Working independently and microscopically through intense focus on the Self but also workingwith distributed, largely unknown collaborators, in multiple platforms. The emerging shapeof the project itself showcases the challenges and possibilities of how research projects atscale can (or don’t) reflect and build social movements. The panel’s four papers situate theproject through a kaleidoscope of perspectives featuring participants from 7 countries, whovariously explore: the value of the project for precarious or early career researchers, howMMS worked as both collaborative space and critical pedagogy, how non-institutional orplayful experimentation in asynchronous collaborations can lead to new synergies; and howMMS developed an independent life of its own, beyond studying COVID to generating multiplecommunities of future digital research practice.